


extreme unction

by triplesalto



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen, Religious Conflict, Vigilante Justice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 09:54:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11552724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triplesalto/pseuds/triplesalto
Summary: Paul Coates is determined to make Joe Miller face justice.Set immediately after Series 3.





	extreme unction

**Author's Note:**

> If desired, see end notes for spoilery content warnings.

The first thing Paul noticed was how hunted Joe’s face was. His eyes were huge, his skin pallid, and he held on to the doorframe as if by reflex. The legal system might have declared Joe innocent, but every inch of his body declared his guilt.

“Hello, Joe. May I come in?”

Joe’s eyes darted past Paul, scanning up and down the street. “Is Mark with you?”

Paul shook his head, continuing to project calm. It was a skill you learned early, as a vicar. “I’m alone.”

Joe scanned the street again, then let go of the doorframe with an effort and stepped back to allow Paul to enter. He locked the door again after, sliding the bolts. “I’ll make you a cuppa,” he mumbled, common courtesy holding even now.

“Thank you,” Paul said, and sat on the one dilapidated sofa, looking around him at the drear that was the remains of Joe Miller’s life. There was a large television and a gaming system, but apart from that there was nothing to betray any personality in the studio. A bed, unmade; a bin of takeaway containers; a half-drunk bottle of vodka on the table. An open wardrobe with work uniforms hung in neat rows.

Nothing, except the pictures that sat on the nightstand table. One of Joe, Ellie, Tom, and Fred, and one of Joe, Tom, and Danny. Everyone in them was smiling, caught in moments of joy, and Paul’s stomach turned. 

He pushed it down. He had come here for a purpose. He would not be distracted.

“Here you go,” Joe said, handing him the tea. There wasn’t another seat, so he sat on the bed, holding his own cup in his hands and staring at Paul. “Why are you here? Did Mark send you?”

“Mark doesn’t know I’m here,” Paul said. 

No one knew he was here. He didn’t want them to know. If they knew, and something went wrong, they might be dragged through the courts. Never again.

Joe’s hands were shaking. He raised his cup to his mouth, and Paul watched him. 

He let the silence lengthen, then broke it in his own time. “Mark tried to commit suicide.”

“Christ,” Joe said, startled. He set the cup down on the bedside table, next to the pictures. It had sloshed on his shirt a little, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Is he all right?”

“No,” Paul said. “He’s not all right. He’ll never be all right again.”

There had been so much pain for that family, victimised and re-victimised. He had prayed for so long for them to find peace. And yet it never came.

“I’m sorry,” Joe said. 

And despite everything, Paul believed him. As a man of God, he knew that there were evil men in this world, men who took joy in destruction. Joe Miller was not one of them. Perhaps he had nightmares; perhaps the boy he had murdered haunted him every minute of his life; perhaps losing his family and his friends was bitter indeed. There was regret in Joe, and it had made Paul keep visiting him in prison, trying to bring him to God. 

There had not been enough regret, however, for Joe to give the Latimer family justice. Every day that Joe was out in the world living free and vindicated by the courts, breathing the fresh air and enjoying an impenitent life, was a new wound to the bereaved family Paul loved. They were all trying to heal, to refuse Joe the ability to continue destroying their lives, and yet he always would. He was a cancer, a toxin, an affront to justice itself.

“I don’t know what I can do,” Joe said. “I can’t bring Danny back.”

“No,” Paul said, setting his cup down. “You can’t.”

“What then?” Joe’s voice was hectic. Perhaps he sensed what was coming. Or perhaps this was his natural state now, a shadow of the laughing husband and father Paul had once known.

Paul bent down and opened his bag. As he straightened, Joe’s eyes were riveted on what he held. 

“Joe,” Paul said, meeting Joe’s eyes calmly, despite the unsheathed knife he held in his hand, “today is the day you die.”

❧

Paul was an alcoholic insomniac, who walked the woods and fields at night, trying to find peace. Perhaps it was natural that he gravitated to the Church; perhaps it was natural that he sought meaning to organise his life, and found it in uncompromising moral duty and divine grace. His faith had enabled him to get clean of his addiction, and his faith had strengthened him throughout these Broadchurch years. He ministered to the suffering and was a support to those who grieved, listened to those who sought his help and never stopped praying for his flock. He felt responsible for them before God, and he loved them.

The Latimers had long been a particular grief of his. How many nights had he spent on his knees, imploring God to heal their wounds? How many hours had he devoted to listening to Beth and Mark, trying to guide them, trying to give them whatever support they needed, trying to be their friend? If God had let such a painful tragedy happen to them, surely He wouldn’t desert them to face it alone. Paul was His representative on Earth, and it was Paul’s responsibility to show God’s love in all his actions. 

It was Mark’s suicide attempt that had made Paul realise his duty, in a thunderclap of clarity.

❧

“This isn’t funny,” Joe said, never taking his eyes off the knife. “You’ve scared me, okay? That satisfy you? Put that away.”

“No.”

The word – or perhaps the calmness of it – seemed to drive Joe crazy. “You’re going to stab me, in my own flat? Have you ever seen a man bleed out, Vicar? It’s messy, it’s brutal. You won’t do it – you can’t do it. I’d fight you. Put it away.”

Paul waited until the hectic flurry of words subsided. “I’ve been watching a family bleed out for the past three years.” He’d thought he’d be more nervous, but here in the moment, he felt only certainty. “I won’t stab you unless I have to. But I will, if you force me.”

“What, you want me to stab myself? Not going to happen.”

Paul shook his head, maintaining eye contact. “I brought a rope.”

Joe’s hands were twisting together, convulsively. He swallowed. “Hanging? No. You won’t do this. You can’t.”

“I promise you, Joe,” Paul said, quietly. “I will.”

“Your life will be over. You’ll go to prison. Don’t you believe in Hell? You’ll go to Hell!”

Paul nodded. “If I have to kill you myself, then yes, I’ll go to prison. _I_ will plead guilty. And as for Hell – well. I believe in the Old Testament God as well as the New Testament God. He says an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

“You couldn’t handle prison,” Joe said. There was remembered fear in his eyes; he seemed to shrink even as Paul watched. “I was going to plead guilty. But prison – I couldn’t do it. Do you know what they do to people like me in there?”

“I can imagine.”

“You couldn’t do prison either. Look, you’ve given me a proper scare, isn’t that what you wanted? Go away and I won’t tell anyone. I won’t call the police, I won’t report it.”

“Joe,” Paul said. “Today is the day you die.”

“Stop _saying_ that!”

“The sooner you accept it, the easier it’ll be,” Paul said. “You’re a paramedic. You can do it cleanly. You won’t suffer.”

Certainly not as much as Danny did.

“Mark told me you said you weren’t brave enough to kill yourself, but that you thought you should have a long time ago.” Paul made his voice gentle, but firm. Inevitability was what he wanted to project. “I’m here to help you.”

“Help me kill myself?” Joe was hovering on the edge of hysteria. “Ta!”

“If the Latimer family doesn’t get closure, I think Mark will be dead within the year. He can’t get over it, Joe, he can’t let go of his grief and his guilt, and his feeling that he’s letting Danny down by not killing you himself. And if he dies, his family will be torn apart again. Chloe has lost her brother – will you take her dad away from her too? Can you do that to Beth? To Lizzie?”

“Mark has to make his own choices,” Joe said, wetting his lips. “I’m not responsible for him.”

“But you are,” Paul said. “You are.”

Joe looked away, for the first time since Paul had taken the knife out. He’d aged decades in the years since Paul had seen him last. 

Paul pushed his advantage. “You can still set things right. If you can’t do prison, you can give the Latimers justice with a good death. Write a confession. Give them closure.”

“I’d never see my boys again,” Joe said. 

“Let them remember you as the man who made things right,” Paul said, “not as a coward.”

“And if I don’t, you’re going to kill me.”

Paul nodded, but Joe wasn’t looking at him. “Yes.”

If man’s justice failed, God’s justice must be carried out. Paul was the instrument of that justice. If he was wrong, if his moment of clarity had been sent not by the Lord but by the Devil, then he would lose his immortal soul – but it was a risk he was willing to take, to slay the ghosts that haunted Beth’s eyes, to banish the pain that loaded Mark’s shoulders. 

Joe looked back at him, holding his gaze. “I'll fight you. You want to risk that? A knife's not a gun. I can get it away from you."

"You could try."

"You think you're so much better than me in a tussle?" Joe said, with a touch of bravado. It was fear. "I killed someone."

"A child," Paul said. "Not me."

Joe's eyes were on the knife, like he was calculating how fast he could cross the room and try to wrench it away. "You're a vicar, not a prizefighter."

"When I was nineteen years old, I killed a man."

Whatever Joe had expected, it wasn't that. Paul had all of his attention now; Joe's mouth was agape, his eyebrows soaring to his nonexistent hairline. " _What_?"

Paul had known he might need to tell Joe this story. It was still difficult to get out. He'd never told another soul before, only God. "I was an alcoholic. Sometimes I used drugs. I ran in a tough crowd. You had to fight, to defend your honour, if you wanted people to respect you." The memories were hard; they kept him up nights, kept him walking and sleepless, and voicing them left his throat dry. "One night I got in a fistfight with a bloke who called my mum a whore. He pulled a knife, I took it away from him and stabbed him. He died."

Joe stared at him. Finally, he said, "How did the police not find that out while they were looking for Danny's killer?"

Paul shrugged. "He was a drug addict. The police put it down to a drug killing. They never traced it to me."

"The vicar - a killer," Joe said, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"It changed me," Paul said, quietly. "The police didn't catch me, but I turned to God."

"And that made it all better?" Joe demanded. "Why aren't you turning yourself in and serving _your_ time in prison? You want me to face justice, what about you?"

Paul didn't expect Joe to understand. "I'm serving my time with God. I've given my life to His service."

"Convenient."

"The salient point is that I know how to kill a man, and I'm not afraid to do it. Your only choice is how you die."

Something in Paul's face, or the tone of his voice, must have convinced Joe. "You really mean it.”

Paul did not waver. “I really do.”

Joe turned his face away, towards the pictures on his bedside table. His family and his victim were laughing up at him, tangible reminders of what he had lost, what he had destroyed.

“Okay,” he said, almost too quiet for Paul to hear. “If that’s the choice – I know what bleeding to death looks like. I’ll take the hanging.”

❧

Paul knew Broadchurch was largely indifferent to him, except on the rare cases when tragedy struck and people looked for deeper meaning. Religion was not a part of people’s daily lives anymore; it was reserved for warzones and natural disasters, death and loss. He tried to make the Church as relevant and as involved in people’s lives as he could, and yet when people did seek it out, it was only because their hearts were breaking.

He had watched the tidal waves of the Latimers’ grief, and prayed for their souls, and for Danny’s. He had done what he could, and it had been little enough – he had never felt as if the support he had offered had even begun to touch the surface of their sorrow.

This was an evil thing he was intending to do. And yet, Paul thought, it would be the best thing he had ever done.

❧

Joe wrote jerkily, his pen stumbling over the page.

Paul didn’t take his eyes off him. His hand was beginning to cramp, from how tightly he clutched the knife. He switched hands and stretched his fingers.

“Do you want to read it?” Joe asked, when he’d finished.

Paul shook his head. “I’m not looking away from you, Joe.”

Joe smiled, a hollow grimace. “I’ll read it to you, then, _Vicar_.”

Paul was beyond gibes. The certainty that ran through his veins hadn’t deserted him yet.

Joe cleared his throat. “Dear Mark and Beth: I’ve tried to live with my guilt, but I can’t do it anymore. I’m sorry I killed Danny, and I’m sorry I pled innocent. Sorry doesn’t begin to describe how much my actions have haunted me. I can’t go on. I hope my death brings you closure and makes you feel that Danny got justice in the end.”

“It’s good,” Paul said, when Joe stopped. Short, but covered everything.

“I’m not reading you the one to my family.”

“Okay.”

Paul didn’t know how this would affect Broadchurch. In his more optimistic moments, he imagined a flood of relief sweeping across the town, as justice denied was finally achieved. But justice could only help, it couldn’t heal on its own. Danny would still be dead. Tom and Fred would now be fatherless. 

It was still the right thing to do. 

He kicked the bag he’d brought over to Joe, who opened it and sat staring down at the rope inside. 

“It’s time to finish it, Joe,” he said, inexorable.

Joe ran a finger along the coil. “Don’t make me do this.”

“Sorry,” Paul said, but he was not.

❧

After Mark’s suicide attempt, Paul had begun researching how to kill a man.

He’d used a proxy, did all the things you were supposed to do when you were covering your tracks. He hadn’t been under any illusions that the precautions would work if anyone started seriously looking into him; but if someone started seriously looking into him, it would be because he’d made a mistake, and if he made a mistake he fully intended to confess. Not for him a long jury trial. Paul was willing to do the time if he was caught.

The first time he'd killed, it had been an accident. This time he was leaving nothing to chance. He’d learned where to stab, the correct angle to incapacitate a man. He’d learned how to put a man out of his misery. He’d learned what would do it the quickest and cause the least pain.

He’d put together the bag he would take. He’d loaded his car.

He’d preached his last sermon, and said goodbye to the Broadchurch he had come to love.

Mark had been looking at him from across the churchyard. There was no way Mark could have known – and yet perhaps he had had a premonition. Paul was in the faith business. He wasn’t prepared to dismiss premonitions.

He’d waved to Mark, and set off on the path that led him here, to Liverpool and to Joe’s end.

❧

Joe could have fought him. Even as shrunken and weak as Joe looked, even though Paul held a knife, even though Paul had done his research, even though Paul had killed before, the outcome wouldn’t have been guaranteed. Joe might have lived; Paul might have been the one bleeding out on Joe’s dingy floor.

But Joe didn’t fight him. In the end, he went peacefully. Paul found it a last grace.

“I’m afraid,” Joe said, when he’d settled the noose around his neck. 

Danny was afraid, Paul wanted to say. You strangled him face to face. It was brutal. He knew what was happening. He knew he was dying. He was in pain. You did that. And then you _kept_ doing it, strangling his family for years afterwards. You exhumed his body. You destroyed Beth and Mark’s marriage. You torpedoed their reputations, and your wife’s as well. You caused so much fear and grief and loss, and all you ever cared about was your own skin.

You’re afraid? There was something deep in Paul’s soul that wanted to say _Good_.

Paul pushed that voice down. This wasn’t about that. This wasn’t about revenge. This was justice; this was God’s hand moving Paul’s, using his unique talents for His purpose. And if God was speaking through Paul, he could show compassion, here at the last.

“It’ll be over quickly,” Paul said. “I won’t let you suffer.”

Probably a lie. But Joe didn’t know that.

“I’ve suffered ever since that night, every single day,” Joe said.

Paul still held the knife. “Go in peace,” he said, and wasn’t sure if it was a command or a blessing. Perhaps it was both.

It wasn’t peaceful. 

But Joe’s paramedic experience meant that it was at least quick.

Paul waited ten minutes after the body had stopped struggling, then put the knife down. He opened an inside pocket of the bag and took out plastic gloves, put them on and checked Joe’s pulse. 

It was done.

And at last, Paul wept.

❧

At the trial, Paul had watched Joe in the dock.

How could he be so calm? How could he sit there so blankly, having taken a life? There was blood on his hands. How could he not be screaming?

(Nineteen-year-old Paul had screamed.)

People had wept around him, surreptitiously, tears in almost everyone’s eyes. 

Joe had been stone-faced.

❧

Paul didn’t scream this time. After a while, he wiped his face, and finished what he had come to do.

He checked both notes, the one to the Latimers and the one to Ellie and the boys. Neither betrayed Paul’s presence or the fact that the suicide had been compelled. He left them on the bedside table.

He peeled the gloves off and put them back in the bag. On the walk back to his hotel, he threw the empty bag into a nearly-full skip. The knife he discarded in a different skip, the gloves in a wheelie bin.

He watched telly and tried to sleep, without much avail. In the morning he would discover the body. 

Around three, he gave up trying to sleep, and knelt praying by the window until sunrise came.

❧

The dingy little room looked the same when Paul returned. He looked at Joe’s body for a minute in silence, then prayed over him. The Lord could forgive anyone, even murderers.

Paul was going to have to live with this for the rest of his life. A second soul that he'd sent to God. Was he any better than Joe, in the end? The profound weariness that pulled at Paul’s soul wasn’t sure. God would judge him someday; for now, he could only live as he felt called to do, and trust in God for the rest.

He placed a call.

The switchboard operator was initially reluctant to patch him through – “he’s busy, sir, can I take your name and number and have him call you back?” - but after Paul said he needed to report a crime she changed her mind.

“What’s all this?” Hardy’s voice was grumpy. It was only half seven, and he’d probably been up until three. Paul knew sleep-deprived when he heard it. “Thought you left us, Vicar.”

“I went to see Joe Miller,” Paul said. He sounded shell-shocked; perhaps he was. “I wanted to tell him about Mark’s suicide attempt and try to persuade him to confess again, to turn himself in.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Hardy said. He was more awake now, and his grumpiness was quickly turning into anger. “He’s been acquitted. He could turn you in for harassment.”

“No, he listened. He said he’d think about it. He cried.” Perhaps that was overdoing it. 

Hardy sighed. “So? Is he turning himself in?”

“No,” Paul said, looking at the still corpse in front of him. “I told him I’d come back this morning to talk to him again. When I got here, the door was unlocked.” He swallowed, mostly for effect but also to calm his nerves. “Inspector, he’s hung himself.”

Silence on the other end of the line, then – “Is he dead?”

“Yes. There’s - there are notes on the table.”

“Don’t touch anything. Where are you?”

“Liverpool.” He told Hardy the address. 

“I’ll call the locals and alert them. You stay put. Don’t touch anything.”

“You said that already. I won’t.”

“Fuck,” Hardy said, and hung up.

Paul watched the body that had been Joe, and waited for the police to arrive.

❧

_three weeks later_

“So you changed your mind about leaving,” Mark said, leaning on the churchyard fence.

Paul watched Lizzie, industriously collecting stones on the path. She loved going on walks with her dad. This was the first time the two had come Paul’s way since his return.

“Yes,” he said. “God told me I had more work to do here.”

“You and God on speaking terms, eh?” Mark asked, with a sceptical smirk. “Well, you’re just lucky they hadn’t replaced you yet.” 

“I am,” Paul agreed. 

They stood in silence, watching Lizzie. She dropped her rocks, and considered wailing, but decided to build a tower instead. Mark made an involuntary pained noise when she sat in the dirt, getting her clothes filthy, and Paul smiled.

“Quite a thing, Joe killing himself,” Mark said, after a minute.

“Yes.”

“Sorry you had to find him. That can’t have been easy.”

Paul could feel Mark’s gaze boring into him, and he raised his head to meet it. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”

There was a question in Mark’s eyes, unsure and half-formed. 

Paul could have told him. Paul could have told him how Joe pled for his life, how he struggled, how he clawed at the noose around his neck, how he sagged when it was over. Paul could have told him that Joe had been afraid, just as Danny had been afraid. Paul could have told him that justice had not only been done, but it had been God’s ruthless justice, complete and full.

But that was not what Mark needed to hear.

“Suicide is always a tragedy,” Paul said. “But I’m glad Joe found repentance in the end. I'm glad he gave your family closure.”

“Yeah,” Mark said. He looked better these days. Not happier, exactly, but less tortured. “Me too.”

For the rest of his life, Paul would remember. The police had accepted Joe’s suicide without question, and Paul was under no suspicion. Still, he would carry his guilt like a secret brand on his heart, never sure until Judgement Day whether or not it had been God who told him to execute justice. He would see Joe’s sightless eyes every night, just like he still saw Peter's t-shirt, sodden with blood. 

He wasn’t sorry. He couldn’t regret his actions, seeing the lightening of the shadows in Mark Latimer’s face. He had done what he was called to do, and it was right.

Paul sent a silent prayer winging to God, and looked into the sunset.

❧

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a much darker story than my usual! But I was convinced while watching Series 3 that this is where the show was heading. When it didn't go there, I knew I had to write it myself.
> 
> Warnings for: vigilante justice, murder/compelled suicide, hanging, and a religious character using religion to justify/cope with all of the above.


End file.
